Hi Chengdu residents,
I’ll be headed to Chengdu for the first time in a few weeks on a Ph.D. research grant (stoked!) and will be around for five months. This is a complete non-emergency question, but being that I haven’t been to China before, I’m curious: what is a coffee addict to do? Of course it is predominately a tea culture, and I can get jazzed about tea as well, but I am pretty dysfunctional without a cup of coffee at home in the morning. Is there any hope of finding half-decent coffee beans in Chengdu? If so, should I bring a coffee-making device with me (say, a French press)? I do know more and more people are drinking coffee in China now, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. I suspect only fellow coffee addicts will find this a completely reasonable dilemma!
And while I have you, Chengdu coffee-drinkers, any cafés you might recommend? Surely there must be a handful of good ones. (I’ll be near Sichuan University, but I travel gladly for coffee.)
Would love your input. Thanks!
Justin